A goal of university undergraduate early childhood teacher preparation programs is to create meaningful experiences that allow teacher candidates to learn theory and evidence-based best practices they will carry into their classrooms as professional educators. They should have direct interactions with young learners to apply coursework to the real…

Concerns about the lack of connection between university-based teacher education courses and clinical experiences have long been shared. Practice-based teacher education has been offered as one way to connect these two aspects of teacher education closer together. However, descriptions about how to implement practice-based teacher education in…

In the United States during March and April of 2020, more than 50 million K-12 students were impacted by school closures with many forced to engage in online teaching for continuity in their 2019-2020 school year. This disruption to K-12 public and private schools reverberated in programs of teacher education around the country. As…

As the intersection between theory and practice, clinical experiences are the shared home through which school and university constituents examine effective pedagogies. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, our teacher preparation programs had built meaningful, face-to-face, partnership-based clinical experiences. The abrupt shift to virtual instruction…

This paper describes consultation training experiences offered through a decades-long partnership between a university school psychology graduate program and a local Head Start center. The collaboration provides a field placement setting where beginning students engage in activities tied to first-year coursework, and an advanced practicum site for…

Clinical practice has long been an integral component of teacher education. In the past two decades, however, the call has intensified for more purposeful, inclusive, integrated, and reflective clinical experiences for teacher candidates learning how to teach and, more broadly, what it means to be a teacher. This article aims to offer a conceptual…

The role of teacher educators as researcher-practitioner is viewed in this narrative reflection from the perspective of the author, the professor of record for a course in which an early field experience tutoring opportunity was embedded. The manuscript reports on the tutoring experiences through the lens of the author with instigations and…

In June 2016, a state university partnered with a local school district to integrate college of education summer courses with a community camp for K-8 students. We reflect upon the benefits and challenges found within this partnership; how the course/camp integration informed our evolving views as teacher educators; and how the camp clinical…

Teacher education plays a central role in education and relates to various stakeholders of education. Currently, teacher education is not perceived as the sole responsibility of higher education institutions, and they are expected to work closely together with other partners. In this paper, the concept of "partnership" is defined and…

The Distance Clinical Connecting Candidates and Children (DC4) is an innovative new model for providing a clinical experience in a reading methods course. Pre-service teachers used this model to implement assessments and lessons via SKYPE with local elementary students. I designed this model to provide a clinical experience when faced with…

Regardless of the type of arts activity, the importance of the arts in afterschool programs cannot be overestimated. As the arts are increasingly marginalized in public school systems, afterschool arts education can be an alternative way to integrate the arts into children's academic experiences or build on their in-school arts experiences (Briggs…

This paper describes several innovations to an early field experience emerging from a community, school, and university partnership focused on a middle school serving diverse students from low-income neighborhoods. With the primary goal of utilizing teaching candidates to provide direct academic, social, and instructional support to the middle…

The personal perspectives of a teacher can support or hinder successful outcomes for students with disabilities. With the increasing prevalence of diverse and inclusive P-12 classrooms, the attitude of the general education teacher is of great importance. Consequently, it is imperative that teacher preparation programs work with community partners…

In recent years, teacher education has been charged with reforming programs to better align curriculum, clinical practice, and accountability. The sense of urgency for reform has been heightened by competition from alternative routes to teaching that jump straight to practice, often criticized for foregoing essential knowledge and theory. This…

Peace education provides for the development of knowledge, skills, and dispositions appropriate to effective peacebuilding. Therefore, the development of curriculum in degree programs which builds bridges by which students in conflict resolution/peace studies classrooms may cross over to the field of conflict transformation and peacebuilding may…